From the stories of war survivors to the current horrors in Syria, it has become increasingly clear that once give the motive and reason, humans will not hesitate to take a life regardless of age and sex. This particular phenomenon raises several questions but the one that stands out the most is why would humans do such a thing if when we have higher thought process and emotional understanding than animals?
In a study by José María Gómez and his team, published in Nature, the results explained that the humans' tendency to resort to lethal violence has an evolutionary origin.
"We found that human lethal violence has an evolutionary origin but can be modulated by some ecological and cultural factors, like the type of sociopolitical organization," said Gómez, as reported by ResearchGate.
Gómez and his team collected data from an exhaustive database that illustrates the occurrence of lethal violence in other mammals. They found that it's actually a rare occurrence in the mammal world and those who seem to be notorious are the species that exhibit social tendencies. The meerkat came out on top of the list of murderous animals and that in itself is baffling because they're known for their exceptional teamwork.
Comparing the statistics to the numbers of human lethal violence, the authors arrived to the conclusion that the rates of murder is attributed to the evolution of human society.
"Deadly violence in humans is therefore an undeniable evolutionary component that precedes our own origin as a species," said one of the co-authors of the study Adela Gonzalez Megías, according to RT Viral.
With a study like this, it's easy to misinterpret the results and use it to justify killing. However, the main point of the study is to demonstrate that although humans may be inherently murderous, there are factors that can modulate these violent tendencies. These factors include the environment around us and the people that surround us.
"We can build a more pacific society if we wish," said Gómez.
